Page Two

THE PEHESOSPLE’S

ADVOCATE

September 9, 1938

THE
PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing
Association, Room i10, 163 West Hastings Street,
Vancouver, B.C. Phone Trinity 2019.

One WYWear_—_.._______$1.80 Three Months. $ .50

Single Copy————— $ .05
Meke All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Adyocate

WVancouver, B.C., Friday, September 9, 1938

Step Ahead, Vanceuver!

ANCOUVER labor should fight to over-

come the big gap between its strength in
the federal and provincial houses and its
weakness in Vancouver city council. While it
has elected men and women like Grant Mce-
Weil, Angus McInnis, Dr. Telford, Harold and
BE. BE. Winch and Dorothy Steeves to legisla-
tures, it has only one member of the city
eouncil, Alderman Helena Gutteridge, when
last year it had three.

There can be no shadow of doubt that this
federal and provincial strength can be ex-
tended to the civic front. Vancouver trade
unions are lively and strong bodies. Both the
CCF and the Communist party are influen-
tial. Issues galore are popping up on all sides.

Especially since Bloody Sunday and the dis-
graceful actions of the municipal authorities,
Vancouver's citizens are conscious of the fact
that the Miller group in control at the city hall
is out of step with the needs of the city.
Mayor Miller, following the footsteps of Gerry
WcGeer, is a man who represents the employ-
ers and their federations. It is time labor-
progressive aldermen and a labor-progressive
mayor were in control at the city hall.

Other cities are making headway in the
fight for municipal reform. Regina, where the
labor movement is relatively weaker, has a
labor majority. So has Moose Jaw a progress-
ive council. Winnipeg has long since made
Jabor municipal history. Toronto is setting a
fine example to the whole country in Civic
politics.

Vancouver must step into line. Unless a
majority of the council has a breadth of vision
and the necessary courage to tackle municipal
problems in the interests of the small man,
then nothing will be done to improve educa-
tional facilities, to get action on such scandals
as the False Creek rat dump, to put up a fight
for the jobless, to get a new deal for the muni-
cipalities, to democratize the municipal insti-
tutions.

Big things are likely to happen this winter.
Already Oakalla is filling up with unemployed
young Canadians pitched into a desperate iub-<
by government politics. The city manager
campaign has sinister forces at work behind
it to head off labor-progressive campaigns for
civic control.

We are pleased to see the CCF’s attitude, as
published in the Federationist, that there must
be action by all progressives to get a demo-
cratic majority on the council. Now is the
time to get together on a slate of labor-pro-
gressive men and women. Such a slate can
be found. Vancouver’s citizens, sick of the
WMeGeer-Miller tradition, can be mobilized at
the polls to close the gap between labor’s par-
liamentary strength and its municipal weak-

ness.

The way is open for victories in the Decem-
ber elections. Step ahead, Vancouver!

Reaction Schemes

A REACTIONARY British industrialist, Sir
Henry Page-Croft, has been touring
British Columbia looking for a nice secluded
place in the interior where unwanted British
workers can be dumped to starve to death
svithout attracting too much attention. Before
selected groups he stated that British Colum-
bia could absorb a million or more immigrants
from the British Isles to the advantage of the
immigrants and of the people already here.

The farmers of British Columbia are in dir-
est poverty, victims of as ruthless a combine
as ever robbed producers, while a large pro-
portion of the workers are reduced to beggary
and prison life.

All peoples should have the right to move
about the surface of the earth if they so desire,
and without regard for frontiers. But emigra-
tion of one’s own volition is one thing, and in-
ducement to migrate by deception, falsehood
and false promises is another thing. And the
latter is the game that the British imperialists
and the seekers of ever more cheap labor in
Canada are playing.

There are many people now in Canada who
remember how they were propagandised into
leaving their homes in the British Isles to come
to Canada, which was pictured in press and
in posters as the Promised Land, as a land
flowing with milk and honey, but when they
were here a short time they found that what
was sought from them was work at starvation
wages, and when they struck for decent wages
or there was no work for them, they were
deported.

Tt is not difficult to discern the motives of
the Page-Crofts; they spring from the worsen-
ing economic situation in Britain, where de-
spite the rising armament program production
is falling and unemployment is on the in-
crease, production of steel being 40 percent
below that of a year ago. The British indus-
trialists and bankers would like to relieve the
pressure which is caused by the failure of
capitalism and its disintegration. But Canada
is suffering from the same disease, and there-
fore is not in a position to accept and provide
for the unwanted workers produced by the
system represented by the Page-Crofts.

The history of immigration is one of gigantic
swindle after another, from which the CPR
has been the chief beneficiary, and it is up to
the people of Canada to see to it that another
and more disastrous one is not perpetrated.

2

<IPONSORED by Louis Le-
bourdais, MLA (Lib.,
Cariboo), and backed by two
ot the biggest Cariboo cattle
ranches, controlling between
them one-seventh of the cattle
raising industry in BC, the
new provincial beef grading
regulations are scheduled to
come into force within a few
days. That is, unless protests
are successful im winning a
hoist.

Under these regulations,
which state that “no person
shall within the specified area
(Vancouver and-district) keep
for sale or sell any beef unless
the beef is branded in accord-

anee with regulations,” all
steers, cows or heifers pro-
duced either on large ranches

solely for beef or by smal] dairy

farmers must be graded into four
divisions of quality, A, B, © and
dD.

in a test grading conducted re—
cently by Pat Campbell, grading
inspector for the four western
provinces, 247 cattle from prime
beef stock, raised specially for
the beef market, were examined.
Only 38 animals were found to be
up to the standard required by
€ven the lowest* of the four
grades. This shows that only
the largest ranches will be able
to supply animals conforming to
qualifications.

At the’ present time, 30 or 40
percent of dairy stock from
farms on the lower mainland is
suitable for retailing to con-
summers in the lower income brac-—
kets. Cows which no longer give
milk, heifers and various
other types of dairy stock, all per-
fectly good meat, are sold by the
farmer to obtain the ready cash
he so urgently needs.

NDER the new regulations, al-
most all this type of meat
will be excluded from the mar-
ket. Farmers will be forced to
hold cattle on farms or ranches
until it reaches the standard
set by the regulations.

Im most cases, this means that
the small farmers, not having suf
ficient capital to hold back their
eattle this length of time, will
be forced to sell their animals
to large ranches to be grainfed
and raised until they conform to
grade regulations. It is quite
easy to see how quickly a few
of the big ranches would be able
to acquire complete monopoly of
the cattle raising industry-

During the months June, July
and part of August, 95 percent of
the meat sold on local markets
is Alberta stock. British Colum-—
bia meat during this period is not
able to comply with regulations,
as prassfed cattle do not have as
as good an appearance. Farmers
here are unable to feed their cat-
tie on grain, but haveto feed them
either on grass or ship them to
Alberta to be grainfed.

A very small quantity of choice
meat is consumed in the Vancou-
ver and district market. Retail-

ers find the main demand is for

Big Business
Schemes To

Exploit the

Housewife

“common’’ or “‘medium’’ beef in
the cheaper grades.

EF THESE regulations are per-

mitted to come into effect, ex—
cluding all dairy stock and
lower-priced beef, the type mostly
consumed by the lower income
brackets, a large number of con-
sumers will find that the price of
meat on the market will be far
beyond their means and the local
meat market will suffer a con-
siderable drop.

Already consumption has
dropped from the 1937 level. In
that year 1500 cattle were con-
sumed every week. This year,
as a result of increased costs
and lower incomes, the amount
has dropped to 1000 a week.

Vancouver, the third largest

by
Kay
Gregory

city in the Dominion, with a pop-
ulation of 246,000, shows an aver-
age beef consumption of 1.6 lbs.
per person a week. The average
jncome of 70 percent of the pop-
ulation is $64 a month, including
people on relief who receive only
$14 a month. When an average
rent allowance of $20 per month
is taken away, $44 per month is
left to buy all requirements for
a family, including light, fuel,
clothes and food. The average
family cannot now afford to buy
meat and under the new regula-
tions still less people will be able
to afford the “luxury” of 2
weekly joint of beef.

WHILE beef grading is not to

be condemned, rather to be
encouraged as a means of assur-
ing consumers they are receiving
the right quality for the right
price, the new regulations will
exclude all cheap gtades from the
market, leaving no meat avail-
able to consumers at the price
they can afford to pay. Yet the
Retail Merchants Association
stated to the executive of the
Vaneouver Housewives’ League
that the new regulations would
not work a hardship on the con-
sumer.

At a round table conference ar-
ranged by the Vancouver Hlouse-

wives’ League in July, Louis Le-
bourdais, sponsor of the regula-—
tions, was asked if he did not

consider the regulations would

increase the price of meat. He
replied that this was so, but that
the consumer Should be willing to
pay this to save the beef industry.

Asked what would become of
meat not covered by the regu-
lations, that is, all dairy steck
and specially raised beef not
conforming to standard, Le-
bourdais replied that it would
be “processed” or canned. Pre-
sumably consumers unable to
buy prime beef will have te be
satisfied yith corned beef.

4p purpose of the regulations
: would seem to be to endea-
your to compete with cheaper
Argentine meat and the higher
priced meat markets in Great
Britain, such as that at Smith-
field, London.

British Columbia faces a simi-
Jar situation to that obtaining on
the prairies, where farmers are
starving while bread made from
Canadian wheat is sold for less
in Scotland than the same bread
in Canada.

Various butchers have been in-
terviewed and it was found that
the retailers as yet are not aware
of the significance of the regula-
tions which threaten to reduce
their trade to a minimum, nor is
the average consumer to whom
the regulations represent just a
series of standards required for
marketable cattle, fully awake to
this threat to living standards.
However, through the efforts of
the Vancouver Housewives’
Leasue, retailers, producers and
consumers are realizing the dan-
ger of such legislation.

GTION on these regulations
has already been held up
until “a meeting of the various
interests, stock men, packers and
others has taken place.”

Farmers who are aware of the
regulations want another grade
added to the present four to in-
clude the cheaper meat for local
markets.

The Housewives’ League has
suggested that a further grade
be included to cater to the con-
summers with low incomes, and
wants cattle graded according
te sex.

At present, a producer is paid
much less money for a cow than
a steer, but the consumer has
no way of knowing the difference
when meat is sold unmarked in
stores. Thus the wholesaler has
another opportunity of obtaining
4 higher margin of profit by buy-

ing cows and selling them at
steer prices.
Protection for the consumer

eould be obtained by forcing
wholesaler and retailer to adver-
tise sex and quality gradings
when displaying meat for sale.

A Teacher Replies

BS THE past few weeks vicious attacks upon Vancouver's school system have been made by

the Vancouver Sun.

While there is truth in the saying,

“There is never smoke without flame,”

3)

the frequency

and ferocity of these blasts have caused many people to question their sincerity and to ask
whence they have been inspired.

The points below which are un-
doubtedly relevant to the discus-
sion have not however been men-
tioned by the Sun.

i. A perusal of the philosophy
of education set forth in the
courses of study for BC’s new
curriculum will reveal a trend
away from the purely academic

type of education and the old
system which was dominated by
Junior Matriculation examina-
tions.

‘HMducation for the living” in
place of “cramming for exams’ is
the new aud perbaps happier note
in the modern pedagogical sym-
phony.

2. Accrediting (the system of
recommending those students
who, on the basis of grades given
throughout the year, have at—
tained a stipulated level of per-
formance instead of having them
write the Junior Matriculation
examinations) was introduced in-
to the BG Senior high schools for
the first time this year.

Tf certain weaknesses appeared
(and some of the examples given
by the Sun seemed very insigni-
ficant, if not fictitious) they can
surely be remedied in the light
of experience.

3. If there are incompetents
on the teaching staff to the ex
tent suggested by the above-
mentioned attacks, the problem,
it would seem, is one of inspection
and of Supervision. Rumblings
ef dissatisfaction with the pre-
sent system are not uncommon
even among the teachers.

Young teachers seldom get the
advice and guidance they so ur-
gently need; it is largely a mat-
ter of “sink or Swim.’ Even ex-
perienced teachers are heard to
resret the lack of supervision by
someone who is not expert in the
subject matter which they them-
selves are handling, but also fully
in touch with recent develop-
ments in teaching technique.
There appears therefore to be a

meed for a larger supervisory
staff.
4 Crowded conditions, toge-

ther with sub-standard accommo-
dation and equipment, exist in
many Vancouver high schools. rt
is a tribute both to teachers and
students that this situation has
not had a more depressing effect
than has been the case upon the
results of their work.

5. The “speed-up” during the
depression has invaded the
schools, especially those large in-
stitutions such as the high schools

of Vancouver. The “teaching
load” has increased not only in

- respect to the time element but

also in the size of classes. Fur-
thermore, numerous small duties
Which have sprung up with the
erowth of more complicated ad-
ministrative machinery (clerical
work, <tc.) fall upon the indivi-
dual teacher. The increased em-
phasis on extra-curricular work,
(sports, dramatics, ete.) practi-
cally all of which is done out of
school hours, entails a. heavy
drain upon the time and energy
of the teaching staff.

Finally, the pressure being
brought to bear upon a vast sec-
tion of the teaching body to go to
summer school and winter ses-
sion Gourses would seem to’ be a2
part of this same phenomenon.

6. Salary cuts are still in etf-
fect. (Are the Sun’s tirades part
of a campaign to keep them so?)

7 "The reaction produced in
the minds of high school students
by the spectacle of hundreds of
their predecessors walking the
streets in their vain search for
employment should also be con-
sidered as a factor likely to
pring about reduced effort and
hence poorer results on the part
of some students.

SHORT JABS

A
Weekly

Commentary

By Ol Bill

Down To Have you ever been a sailor, in any
are Capacity from messboy te shipmas-—
The Sea _ ier?

Have you ever at any time
earned a precarious living among the hardy folks
who comb the seas for the’ salt-water fish? Have
you ever lived along shore in any of the countries
where the world’s sea-borne traffic passes in ships
all day long? Do you belong, or have you at any
time belonged, to that great section of the race for
whom the preacher intercedes when he prays “for
those in peril on the sea’’?

if you do you must know that the tradition of
the,sea is not limited to the “women and children
first” slogan of the passenger liners that meet with
shipwreck You will know that in the mind of every
individual, man or woman, who has taken the sea
for a mistress, whether the mariner who risks his
life on its broad bosom or the sturdy breed who
battle for life on its rocky margin, the first idea in
a Marine calamity is to. help their fellow seafarers
whose lives are endangered.

An SOS from a vessel in distress will bring speed-
ing from hundreds of miles away, craft of every
description from fishing smacks to ocean grey-
hounds, not to salvage property but to save lives.
Around the coasts of the maritime countries volun-
teer lifeboat crews will risk their lives 365 day in the
year to save the sailors on stranded and storm beset
ships. Everything will be done for the comfort of
the rescued and -provision made for safe return to
their Homes. This is done by the men who give
battle to “Old Ocean’’; human in every fibre of their
being, with the salt sea spray in their hair and the
tang of the ocean in their skin.

Anti-Human With the coming of fascism,
z however, 2 new element is en-
Element tering the picture, an element
that is not human in any sense of the term and
which we refuse to call brutai out of consideration
for the animal kingdom. The fascist rulers of Japan
take no thought of the tradition of the sea. When a
ship is driven ashore in Japanese waters members
of the crew are placed under arrest and treated like
eriminals. This has happened twice in the last
couple of months; first to the Soviet ship, Refrigera-
tor No. i, and again to the Swedish freighter, Fer-
mia. The Soviet crew were tortured by bastinadoing
(beating on* the soles of their feet with canes), an
ancient Turkish custom, and with electric apparatus,
Japan being a highly developed modern nation.

Wot only in Japan does fascism display its in-
describably ferocious character, but in the Mediter-
Tanean also. When the Soviet ship, Kim, bound
from Holland for the Black Sea, was attacked by
Franco’s pirates, the crew were locked below and
the ship set on fire. Henry Morgan and Captain
Kidd at their worst never indulged in such an
atrocity. Lhe International Seamen and Harbour
Workers were proud to be able to issue a manifesto
after this horrible example of degeneracy which
proved that the pirate crew were not seamen but
the riff-raff scum of the landlord and military of
ficer clique.

The murder of British and other seamen by the
bombers of Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler, with the
connivance of Chamberlain (alias Chambermaid);
while Chamberlain’s navy looks on, must also be
put in the same category. The only British merchant
vessel so far saved from destruction when attacked
by the fascists, the Llandaff Castile, was protected,
not by a British naval unit, but by the Duteh sloop
of war, Johann Maurits van Nassau.

But the Japanese fascist imperialist warz-lords,
Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Chamberlain and their
fascist imperialist fellow buccaneers neither know
nor care anything about the tradition of the sea and
their atrocities do not originate in any human failing
but from anti-human class terror.

é . 5 > it’s a short jump from the men
Patriotism who go down to the sea in ships
to the men who send them (Gn the coffin ships).
While Sir Nazi Page Croft is trying to unload a mil-
lion of Britain’s unemployed onto us in Canada,
what are his fellow vultures, the shipowners amone
them, doing to alleviate unemployment in Britain?

The latest issue of Lloyd’s register, for the quar-
ter ending June, 1930, shows that twenty-seven and
a half million dollars worth of merchant tonnage is
being built in foreign, including Nazi, shipyards
for British shipowners. Foreign orders in British
yards amount to only ten and a half million dollars,
including orders for Soviet icebreakers, dredges
and hopper barges.

Last year in the period covered, 250,000 tons were
under construction for British owners; this year,
only 50,000. And the British shipbuilders are using
the “patriotism” of the British shipowners Cargely
themselves) to justify wage-slashing and demand
government subsidies for the industry.

In my old stamping ground, Greenock, one of the
shipbuilding towns on the Clyde, rivet boys, idle so
long that they are no longer entitled to unemploy-
ment insurance and refused out-relief by the local
Bumbles, formed a mass parade to the poor-house
and demanded admission there.

So if Sir Nazi Page Croft will go back to his own
country and persuade his fascist shipowner friends
to have their ships built in their own country he will
have no need to convince us that we need “a million
strong, sturdy people now in England” to aid Canada
solve her most serious economic problem.

= Sir John Harris, secretary of the
African Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Pro-
Discontent tection Society, who has returned

to London after a three months’ tour in Africa, said
that he “found hardly anyone who would deny that
there was growing discontent among the natives
everywhere.’”’

He questioned native chiefs on the transfer to the
Union of Swaziland, Basutoland and Bechuanaland.

In some territories, land shortage was complained
of. The native was allotted cight acres as compared
with the white man’s 130 acres.

Complaint was made of low wages, few natives
getting more than $100 a year, and some as little
as $30 with a hut and food

“The dominant desire of the natives of the pro-
tectorates is very emphatically that of remaining
under the control of Whitehall,” said Sir John.

“Racial laws in the Union of South Africa are
creating such bitterness that the natives within the
Union wish to save their brethren from coming under
this repressive legislation.”

. Donations this week: Victoria
$50 Chinese Washerwoman, $2; P. S. Lazar-
Fund off, $1; Joe Keenan, $2; Jenny
Barr, 25c; W. Bennett, 50c; Total, $50. Another $10
for five Chinese guerilla leaders. Let’s have it!

z

SE Os ee